


Watching Out

by aravenwood



Series: Whumptober 2020 [7]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Andy | Andromache of Scythia Needs a Hug, Andy | Andromache of Scythia Whump, Booker | Sebastien le Livre Needs Therapy, Depressed Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Trauma, Mild Gore, Nightmares, Protective Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Protective Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:40:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26915266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aravenwood/pseuds/aravenwood
Summary: Booker struggles with nightmares in the aftermath of his exile. Joe may be mad at him, but he won't let his closest friend suffer.Written for Whumptober 2020 for the alt prompt "nightmares".
Relationships: Andy | Andromache & Booker | Sebastien & Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf & Nicky | Nicolò, Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Whumptober 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947343
Comments: 6
Kudos: 136
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Watching Out

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I want to say thank you for the amazing response to my last couple of Old Guard fics. I love this fandom so much and I'm so happy that I get to share my darkest, meanest ideas for my favourite characters with all of you! I have a few more ideas for fics and the month is far from over - I hope that I can keep providing you with fics that you enjoy!
> 
> TW in this one for some medical trauma and minor gore.
> 
> Enjoy!

Booker didn’t miss the odd looks he received from his neighbours whenever he passed them in the hall. He didn’t miss how they kept their distance or how one woman, a single mother, pointedly held her son more tightly in her arms. They were afraid of him, and he couldn’t exactly blame them.

He’d been alone for a month and a half now, and still the nightmares lingered.

Most nights he was a bystander Dr Kozak’s lab, trapped motionless in the corner while she cut pieces off Joe and Nicky, sliced into their chests, filled them with drugs and poisons. His body wouldn’t move when he commanded it to, and his desperate pleading with her to torture him instead went unheard - she couldn’t hear him over Joe and Nicky’s own screams, one screaming in agony and the other for mercy. He’d be trapped in the nightmare for hours, his body refusing to wake before he had seen everything. This was what he deserved, after all - to suffer the way his team had done.

Even when he was awake, the nightmare refused to leave him. His voice was permanently hoarse from screaming, his throat so raw that even the strongest of alcohol could not ease the pain.

He deserved this. He reminded himself of this every day, every time his thoughts drifted towards self-pity. And every time he found himself smiling, whether over a book, a pleasant meal or a memory, he forced himself to think about the nightmares. Happiness was not something a monster like him deserved.

–-

_Tonight’s nightmare was even worse than usual. Not only were Joe and Nicky strapped to the surgical tables like they always were, but Andy and Nile were there too. Dr Kozak stood over Andy with a scalpel in hand, lowering it towards her bare sternum with a determined look on her face. She didn’t seem to care about the seeping gunshot wound on Andy’s shoulder, nor about the glazed look in her eyes or the sweat on her skin._

_She didn’t seem to care that Andy was dying._

_“No!” Nicky was screaming. “You can’t! Can’t you see that she is not healing? You will kill her!”_

_Dr Kozak smiled, teeth bared. She looked like a monster, all dark eyes and sharp teeth. “I know. But I can take her apart in front of all of you, and you will see that despite your immortality, you are only flesh and blood. You will see what will happen when your powers fail you. And when they do, I will be the one to take you apart.”_

_And with that said, she dragged the scalpel down Andy’s sternum, slicing her open from chest to hips. Andy bucked against her restraints, teeth gritted to hold back a full scream - at least until Kozak pressed down harder, the blade sinking deeper and deeper into flesh._

_Then the screams were deafening. As she fought, her wrists began to bleed beneath the straps which held her down. Other doctors moved in, doctors Booker was sure hadn’t been in the room before, and they circled Andy’s body like vultures, their own scalpels out to take a piece of the dying immortal._

_Joe was screaming. Nicky was pleading. Nile was fighting her own restraints, screaming Andy’s name over and over._

_And Booker just stared, his body cold and numb and his mind empty._

He came to with a roar and immediately rolled on his side to vomit on the floor. All he could hear were the sound of the blades slicing through skin, Andy’s pained screams and his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t even scream as his lungs ran out of oxygen.

He had done this to them. He’d killed Andy.

His body shuddering, he curled up on his side and buried his face in his pillow, his sheets held in clenched fists. Deep, painful sobs burst from his throat, almost choking him with their intensity.

He was a monster. A traitor. A murderer. He’d killed before - hundreds if not thousands of times - but this was different. This was Andy. His sister.

As he cried, he became aware of a ringing. At first he assumed it was just in his mind, that he had finally lost it. But then he recognised it - it was his phone. It hadn’t rung since he’d moved in, but he always used the same ringtone for every phone he bought and he’d know it everywhere.

But who was phoning _him_? The only people who had his number were the team, and they wouldn’t phone him unless-.

No.

Not now. It wasn’t time, it couldn’t be time. She couldn’t be-. She couldn’t be gone, not yet.

He threw himself across the room and answered the phone with shaking hands. “Hello? What has happened? What happened please tell me she is ok-.”

A voice cut him off. “Booker.”

His breaths froze in his lungs. “Joe?” he spluttered.

“Yes.” A pause. “She’s alive.”

Booker choked on a sob. “Then why-?”

Joe cleared his throat awkwardly. “Because. Nicky told me that you needed a friend. He had a feeling,” he mumbled.

“Oh.” Nicky was always good like that. “Um…I had a nightmare.” He felt like a child, saying it like that. Like one of his own children, running into his room in the middle of the night, shaking and sobbing and hugging their pillows-. No. He forced the thought from his mind.

Joe was quiet on the other end for a full minute before finally speaking. “Tell me about it?”

Booker explained, after some hesitation. He told Joe about Dr Kozak and her monstrous expression, about the scalpel which sliced Andy open, and about the other doctors who hurried in to take a shot. Joe was quiet throughout, save for an occasional hum to show that he was listening. He offered no other input, no advice or comfort or even a comment about Booker’s hoarse voice. All he said before he hung up was, “call me tonight, before you go to sleep.”

And Booker did. He did it every night. It didn’t stop the nightmares, not immediately. But after a month of daily calls things were a little less tense. Still nowhere near how they used to be, but that was fine because Booker knew he didn’t deserve it.

By the time another month had passed, his screaming stopped.

One morning, one of his neighbours even said hello.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading!


End file.
